Property Resources

Joseph Rank Trust Grants

The Joseph Rank Trust is an independent grant-making charity which supports the Methodist Church of Great Britain and the Methodist Church in Ireland. It's not a Methodist Church institution, nor is it part of the Connexion. All applications must be submitted through the Synod Secretary to ensure District approval and knowledge of the application. Please read our District policy on applying for a grant from the Joseph Rank Trust here.... and also the information on the Joseph Rank Trust website here... before preparing your grant application.

Consents Giving System

A new version of the system went live on Friday 11 September 2015. Some of the key changes are:

Document Management System – Documents can now be attached to projects or properties. Currently, the file format is limited to .pdf, .jpg and .png.

Improved Replacement Projects – Managing trustees can now indicate if they believe their project to be a replacement project and how much they hope to receive as part of the levy refund.

Grants – The questions on the grants, project purpose and project summary tabs have changed to reflect changes to the grant criteria.

Authorisations – The authorisation section has now been moved to its own tab. This means that the managing trustees will come to the authorisations section only once they’ve completed all the other preceding sections. There is also now a Lease Confirmation Date field to be completed which automatically generates a reminder after two years to indicate the lease is coming up for renewal.

Layout – The layout has been changed to make the guidance notes more obvious to users and work towards a cleaner layout overall.

A key benefit to be derived from the new system will be that full quinquennial inspection reports in the file formats described will now be able to be attached to the Property Record. A separate message will be sent to Circuit Property Secretaries making a slight amendment to current District Policy on this topic. If anyone has any difficulty with the new version please do contact Jim Irving, the District Property Secretary here....

Property Matters

Issue 12 (September 2015) of Property Matters is available to download as a PDF here.... or as a Word document here.... or on the connexional website here.... This edition includes also articles on carbon reduction, church insurance made simple, updates from the Connexional team and TMCP, the JSPG roadshows and more. Read more about Property Matters here....

Roof Repair Scheme for Listed Places of Worship

Many of you may have seen the announcement made by
the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 18 March 2015 that a further £40 million
pounds has been allocated to this fund, which is available to all listed places
of worship and all denominations. Further information can be found here....

Review of Current Societies and Buildings

Methodist Conference has directed that all Districts conduct a full review of all societies and buildings against the criteria of vitality, vision, location and available resources. This should lead to a significant revision and broadening of our District 'master plan' which the District Policy Committee is required to maintain to comply with Standing Order 962. A letter from the Chair of District, the questionnaire and self-appraisal review are available to download. Letter from Chair of District here...., Questionnaire here.... (Word) and here.... (PDF), Self-appraisal review here.... (Word) and here.... (PDF).

Guide to Connexional grants for property schemes

Connexional Grants Committee (CGC) is committed to furthering mission, both locally and globally, through funding programmes to support community action and evangelism, and for the improvement to the lives of people throujgh care and social justice. Download a guide to Connexional Property Grants and Heritage Grants here....

Guide to Reporting a Church closure

From 1 September 2014 there has been only one accepted method to report church closures - online. Download a helpful step-by-step guide showing how to do ithere....

Building Maintenance

Through
the good offices of Sue Manson, the Regional Project Officer (Cumbria) for the Maintenance
Co-operatives Project of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), who gave a presentation at Synod on 10 May 2014 a digital copy of a Building
Maintenance Calendar to help maintain your buildings in good condition between
Quinquennial Inspections can be found here....Hard copies of the Calendar should be circulated to
each Church in the near future. SPAB also produce a series of short video clips on the subject of building maintenance here.... The clips are equally relevant to modern buildings and might prove useful to someone taking up a new position with responsibility for property or to illustrate to reluctant volunteers that there is help available to fulfil the role.

The Buildings Group met in December and as a result a revised version of the way Methodist property is administered has been produced by Jim Irving and David Andrews. Download the revised strategy here....

Consent Giving System - Property Project Funding

Instances have occurred of trustees selecting the incorrect fund type when applying for Consent. As a result they then encounter difficulties when attempting to draw down the funds from TMCP. A new section has been added to the Help and Guidance Section of the Consent Giving System here.... Taking care at the initial stage of entry will help to reduce the overall amount of work required.

Carbon Reduction Tab

The Carbon Reduction tab has been introduced on the online returns website to provide circuits and the connexion as a whole with a means of monitoring energy use and efficiency as directed by Methodist Conference. For more information on how this works and why we should use it see here....

Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)

Project Tool Kit : 'Crossing the Threshold'

Information about a community development approach to the use of church buildings is available here....

Annual Returns (previously known as Schedules A, C and D)

There is now an online mechanism to report annual returns through an “Online” login screen. For more information on what to do see the Procedures help sheet here.... and the Help and Guidance notes here....

Correspondence with TMCP re Property Schemes

To speed correspondence with TMCP and as good practice please always include the Project or Scheme Reference Number in the heading of all letters and emails. This reduces the workload at TMCP as they can go straight to the appropriate file instead of having to search for the reference number. More here....

Resources for Rural Places of Worship

This is a free online resource developed in response to findings that for many church buildings are a drain of time, energy and money. It signposts people to the broadest range of available information and help. More here....

Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme

The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme makes grants towards the VAT incurred in making repairs and carrying out necessary alterations to listed buildings mainly used for public worship. More here....

Solar Panels on Church Buildings

The Methodist Church has published a briefing sheet for guidance regarding solar panels on your church buildings. More here....

Window Replacement

Problems have been experienced with regard to replacing windows in both Churches and Manses. Standing Order 931(1)(x) with regard to Consent will apply unless you are replacing like for like. There are various Planning Regulations to be considered. The Connexion has also produced a guidance leaflet which can be found here. If you are considering replacing windows it would be helpful if early contact is made with the District Property Secretary in an endeavour to prevent further problems.